“I know that; what is the use of grieving and fretting and losing one’s good looks for the sake of a person who has ceased to care for one? Love is never rekindled, you know; its ashes never again take fire.”
“Do you speak from experience?”
“Yes,” answered Kathleen Weir, sharply. “I’ve watched the flame die out, and the last flicker expire. It’s an unpleasant experience, when the ice has not already touched your own heart.”
“I could never imagine it happening to you.”
“You say that because I am an actress; a woman used to, and who loves flattery, you are thinking. But it did happen to me, Mr. Webster! Perhaps it was my temper, perhaps it was his, but my gentleman turned cold and disagreeable—and in the end we parted.”
Ralph Webster felt slightly embarrassed.
“And, now,” went on Miss Weir, throwing back her well-shaped head, crowned with its thick chestnut hair, “he is no more to me than last year’s snow! He changed first, but I afterward. But why need I bore you with all this? Perhaps you do know that I am a married woman parted from my husband?”
“I certainly did not know it.”
“Yes, nine years ago I married a young man called Temple—”